CHAPTER XXVIII
IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE
I opened the door to Catriona and stopped her on the threshold.
"Your father wishes us to take our walk," said I.
She looked to James More, who nodded, and at that, like a trainedsoldier, she turned to go with me.
We took one of our old ways, where we had gone often together, and beenmore happy than I can tell of in the past. I came a half a step behind,so that I could watch her unobserved. The knocking of her little shoesupon the way sounded extraordinary pretty and sad; and I thought it astrange moment that I should be so near both ends of it at once, andwalk in the midst between two destinies, and could not tell whether Iwas hearing these steps for the last time, or whether the sound of themwas to go in and out with me till death should part us.
She avoided even to look at me, only walked before her, like one who hada guess of what was coming. I saw I must speak soon before my couragewas run out, but where to begin I knew not. In this painful situation,when the girl was as good as forced into my arms and had alreadybesought my forbearance, any excess of pressure must have seemedindecent; yet to avoid it wholly would have a very cold-like appearance.Between these extremes I stood helpless, and could have bit my fingers;so that, when at last I managed to speak at all, it may be said I spokeat random.
"Catriona," said I, "I am in a very painful situation; or rather, so weare both; and I would be a good deal obliged to you if you would promiseto let me speak through first of all, and not to interrupt till I havedone."
She promised me that simply.
"Well," said I, "this that I have got to say is very difficult, and Iknow very well I have no right to be saying it. After what passedbetween the two of us last Friday, I have no manner of right. We havegot so ravelled up (and all by my fault) that I know very well the leastI could do is just to hold my tongue, which was what I intended fully,and there was nothing further from my thoughts than to have troubled youagain. But, my dear, it has become merely necessary, and no way by it.You see, this estate of mine has fallen in, which makes me rather abetter match; and the--the business would not have quite the sameridiculous-like appearance that it would before. Besides which, it'ssupposed that our affairs have got so much ravelled up (as I was saying)that it would be better to let them be the way they are. In my view,this part of the thing is vastly exaggerate, and if I were you I wouldnot wear two thoughts on it. Only it's right I should mention the same,because there's no doubt it has some influence on James More. Then Ithink we were none so unhappy when we dwelt together in this townbefore. I think we did pretty well together. If you would look back, mydear--"
"I will look neither back nor forward," she interrupted. "Tell me theone thing: this is my father's doing?"
"He approves of it," said I. "He approved that I should ask your hand inmarriage," and was going on again with somewhat more of an appeal uponher feelings; but she marked me not, and struck into the midst.
"He told you to!" she cried. "It is no sense denying it, you saidyourself that there was nothing farther from your thoughts. He told youto."
"He spoke of it the first, if that is what you mean," I began.
She was walking ever the faster, and looking fair in front of her; butat this she made a little noise in her head, and I thought she wouldhave run.
"Without which," I went on, "after what you said last Friday, I wouldnever have been so troublesome as make the offer. But when he as good asasked me, what was I to do?"
She stopped and turned round upon me.
"Well, it is refused at all events," she cried, "and there will be anend of that."
And she began to walk forward.
"I suppose I could expect no better," said I, "but I think you might tryto be a little kind to me for the last end of it. I see not why youshould be harsh. I have loved you very well, Catriona--no harm that Ishould call you so for the last time. I have done the best that I couldmanage, I am trying the same still, and only vexed that I can do nobetter. It is a strange thing to me that you can take any pleasure to behard to me."
"I am not thinking of you," she said, "I am thinking of that man, myfather."
"Well, and that way, too!" said I. "I can be of use to you that way,too; I will have to be. It is very needful, my dear, that we shouldconsult about your father; for the way this talk has gone, an angry manwill be James More."
She stopped again. "It is because I am disgraced?" she asked.
"That is what he is thinking," I replied, "but I have told you alreadyto make nought of it."
"It will be all one to me," she cried. "I prefer to be disgraced!"
I did not know very well what to answer, and stood silent.
There seemed to be something working in her bosom after that last cry;presently she broke out, "And what is the meaning of all this? Why isall this shame loundered on my head? How could you dare it, DavidBalfour?"
"My dear," said I, "what else was I to do?"
"I am not your dear," she said, "and I defy you to be calling me thesewords."
"I am not thinking of my words," said I. "My heart bleeds for you, MissDrummond. Whatever I may say, be sure you have my pity in your difficultposition. But there is just the one thing that I wish you would bear inview, if it was only long enough to discuss it quietly; for there isgoing to be a collieshangie when we two get home. Take my word for it,it will need the two of us to make this matter end in peace."
"Ay," said she. There sprang a patch of red in either of her cheeks."Was he for fighting you?" said she.
"Well, he was that," said I.
She gave a dreadful kind of laugh. "At all events, it is complete!" shecried. And then turning on me: "My father and I are a fine pair," shesaid, "but I am thanking the good God there will be somebody worse thanwhat we are. I am thanking the good God that he has let me see you so.There will never be the girl made that would not scorn you."
I had borne a good deal pretty patiently, but this was over the mark.
"You have no right to speak to me like that," said I. "What have I donebut to be good to you, or try to? And here is my repayment! O, it is toomuch."
She kept looking at me with a hateful smile. "Coward!" said she.
"The word in your throat and in your father's!" I cried. "I have daredhim this day already in your interest. I will dare him again, the nastypole-cat; little I care which of us should fall! Come," said I, "back tothe house with us; let us be done with it, let me be done with the wholeHieland crew of you! You will see what you think when I am dead."
She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck herfor.
"O, smile away!" I cried. "I have seen your bonny father smile on thewrong side this day. Not that I mean he was afraid, of course," I addedhastily, "but he preferred the other way of it."
"What is this?" she asked.
"When I offered to draw with him," said I.
"You offered to draw upon James More?" she cried.
"And I did so," said I, "and found him backward enough, or how would webe here?"
"There is a meaning upon this," said she. "What is it you are meaning?"
"He was to make you take me," I replied, "and I would not have it. Isaid you should be free, and I must speak with you alone; little Isupposed it would be such a speaking! '_And what if I refuse_?' sayshe.--'_Then it must come to the throat cutting_,' says I, '_for I willno more have a husband forced on that young lady than what I would havea wife forced upon myself_.' These were my words, they were a friend'swords; bonnily have I been paid for them! Now you have refused me ofyour own clear free will, and there lives no father in the Highlands, orout of them, that can force on this marriage. I will see that yourwishes are respected; I will make the same my business, as I have allthrough. But I think you might have that decency as to affect somegratitude. 'Deed, and I thought you knew me better! I have not behavedquite well to you, but that was weakness. And to think me a coward andsuch a coward as that--O, my lass, there was a stab for
the last of it!"
"Davie, how would I guess?" she cried. "O, this is a dreadful business!Me and mine,"--she gave a kind of wretched cry at the word--"me and mineare not fit to speak to you. O, I could be kneeling down to you in thestreet, I could be kissing your hands for your forgiveness!"
"I will keep the kisses I have got from you already," cried I. "I willkeep the ones I wanted and that were something worth; I will not bekissed in penitence."
"What can you be thinking of this miserable girl?" says she.
"What I am trying to tell you all this while!" said I, "that you hadbest leave me alone, whom you can make no more unhappy if you tried, andturn your attention to James More, your father, with whom you are liketo have a queer pirn to wind."
"O, that I must be going out into the world alone with such a man!" shecried, and seemed to catch herself in with a great effort. "But troubleyourself no more for that," said she. "He does not know what kind ofnature is in my heart. He will pay me dear for this day of it; dear,dear, will he pay."
She turned, and began to go home and I to accompany her. At which shestopped.
"I will be going alone," she said. "It is alone I must be seeing him."
Some little while I raged about the streets, and told myself I was theworst used lad in Christendom. Anger choked me; it was all very well forme to breathe deep; it seemed there was not air enough about Leyden tosupply me, and I thought I would have burst like a man at the bottom ofthe sea. I stopped and laughed at myself at a street corner a minutetogether, laughing out loud, so that a passenger looked at me, whichbrought me to myself.
"Well," I thought, "I have been a gull and a ninny and a soft Tommy longenough. Time it was done. Here is a good lesson to have nothing to dowith that accursed sex, that was the ruin of the man in the beginningand will be so to the end. God knows I was happy enough before ever Isaw her; God knows I can be happy enough again when I have seen the lastof her."
That seemed to me the chief affair: to see them go. I dwelled upon theidea fiercely; and presently slipped on, in a kind of malevolence, toconsider how very poorly they were like to fare when Davie Balfour wasno longer by to be their milk-cow; at which, to my own very greatsurprise, the disposition of my mind turned bottom up. I was stillangry; I still hated her; and yet I thought I owed it to myself that sheshould suffer nothing.
This carried me home again at once, where I found the mails drawn outand ready fastened by the door, and the father and daughter with everymark upon them of a recent disagreement. Catriona was like a woodendoll; James More breathed hard, his face was dotted with white spots,and his nose upon one side. As soon as I came in, the girl looked at himwith a steady, clear, dark look that might very well have been followedby a blow. It was a hint that was more contemptuous than a command, andI was surprised to see James More accept it. It was plain he had had amaster talking-to; and I could see there must be more of the devil inthe girl than I had guessed, and more good-humor about the man than Ihad given him the credit of.
He began, at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainly speaking from alesson; but he got not very far, for at the first pompous swell of hisvoice, Catriona cut in.
"I will tell you what James More is meaning," said she. "He means wehave come to you, beggar-folk, and have not behaved to you very well,and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour. Now we arewanting to go away and be forgotten; and my father will have guided hisgear so ill, that we cannot even do that unless you will give us somemore alms. For that is what we are, at all events, beggar-folk andsorners."
"By your leave, Miss Drummond," said I, "I must speak to your father bymyself."
She went into her own room and shut the door, without a word or a look.
"You must excuse her, Mr. Balfour," says James More. "She has nodelicacy."
"I am not here to discuss that with you," said I, "but to be quit ofyou. And to that end I must talk of your position. Now, Mr. Drummond, Ihave kept the run of your affairs more closely than you bargained for. Iknow you had money of your own when you were borrowing mine. I know youhave had more since you were here in Leyden, though you concealed iteven from your daughter."
"I bid you beware. I will stand no more baiting," he broke out. "I amsick of her and you. What kind of a damned trade is this to be a parent!I have had expressions used to me----" There he broke off. "Sir, this isthe heart of a soldier and a parent," he went on again, laying his handon his bosom, "outraged in both characters--and I bid you beware."
"If you would have let me finish," says I, "you would have found I spokefor your advantage."
"My dear friend," he cried, "I know I might have relied upon thegenerosity of your character."
"Man! will you let me speak?" said I. "The fact is that I cannot win tofind out if you are rich or poor. But it is my idea that your means, asthey are mysterious in their source, so they are something insufficientin amount; and I do not choose your daughter to be lacking. If I durstspeak to herself, you may be certain I would never dream of trusting itto you; because I know you like the back of my hand, and all yourblustering talk is that much wind to me. However, I believe in your wayyou do still care something for your daughter after all; and I must justbe doing with that ground of confidence, such as it is."
Whereupon, I arranged with him that he was to communicate with me, as tohis whereabouts and Catriona's welfare, in consideration of which I wasto serve him a small stipend.
He heard the business out with a great deal of eagerness; and when itwas done, "My dear fellow, my dear son," he cried out, "this is morelike yourself than any of it yet! I will serve you with a soldier'sfaithfulness----"
"Let me hear no more of it!" says I. "You have got me to that pitch thatthe bare name of soldier rises on my stomach. Our traffic is settled; Iam now going forth and will return in one half-hour, when I expect tofind my chambers purged of you."
I gave them good measure of time; it was my one fear that I might seeCatriona again, because tears and weakness were ready in my heart, and Icherished my anger like a piece of dignity. Perhaps an hour went by; thesun had gone down, a little wisp of a new moon was following it across ascarlet sunset; already there were stars in the east, and in mychambers, when at last I entered them, the night lay blue. I lit a taperand reviewed the rooms; in the first there remained nothing so much asto awake a memory of those who were gone; but in the second, in a cornerof the floor, I spied a little heap that brought my heart into my mouth.She had left behind at her departure all that ever she had of me. It wasthe blow that I felt sorest, perhaps because it was the last; and I fellupon that pile of clothing and behaved myself more foolish than I careto tell of.
Late in the night, in a strict frost, and my teeth chattering, I cameagain by some portion of my manhood and considered with myself. Thesight of these poor frocks and ribbons, and her shifts, and the clockedstockings, was not to be endured; and if I were to recover any constancyof mind, I saw I must be rid of them ere the morning. It was my firstthought to have made a fire and burned them; but my disposition hasalways been opposed to wastery, for one thing; and for another, to haveburned these things that she had worn so close upon her body, seemed inthe nature of a cruelty. There was a corner cupboard in that chamber;there I determined to bestow them. The which I did and made it a longbusiness, folding them with very little skill indeed but the more care;and sometimes dropping them with my tears. All the heart was gone out ofme, I was weary as though I had run miles, and sore like one beaten;when, as I was folding a kerchief that she wore often at her neck, Iobserved there was a corner neatly cut from it. It was a kerchief of avery pretty hue, on which I had frequently remarked; and once that shehad it on, I remembered telling her (by way of a banter) that she woremy colours. There came a glow of hope and like a tide of sweetness in mybosom; and the next moment I was plunged back in a fresh despair. Forthere was the corner crumpled in a knot and cast down by itself inanother part of the floor.
But when I argued with myself, I grew more hopeful. She had cu
t thatcorner off in some childish freak that was manifestly tender; that shehad cast it away again was little to be wondered at; and I was inclinedto dwell more upon the first than upon the second, and to be morepleased that she had ever conceived the idea of that keepsake, thanconcerned because she had flung it from her in an hour of naturalresentment.
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